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Perth-based Carnegie Corporation, together with Renewable Energy Holdings in the UK, have developed a zero emission, wave-powered, desalination and energy generation plant so simple in its concept its a wonder that it’s not already a feature of everyday life.
However, Carnegie Corporation’s managing director Michael Ottaviano, is careful how he chooses his words when it comes to describing the seemingly straightforward innovation.
“I use the word elegant rather than simple because I insult all my engineers and scientists if I use the word simple!” he says.
“CETO is basically a pump that sits fully submerged underwater, anchored to the sea floor. So if you’re on the beach you don’t actually know it’s out there. And it converts the energy of the waves,” Mr Ottaviano says.
“Basically, the swell comes through and drives the buoy up and down in a pump. That pump sucks water in, pressurises it to very high pressure and then delivers that water ashore through a pipeline.
“And once you’re ashore, then you can then use that water to drive a turbine and create hydro electricity, or it comes in at the right pressure to create desalinated fresh water through standard reverse osmosis technology.”
CETO was first conceived in 1975, but it wasn’t until 2003 that the first prototype was created. Each unit is built from components with a known submarine life of over 30 years, and is designed to move in harmony with the sea, rather than attempting to resist its movement.
Mr Ottaviano believes the technology has a significant advantage to other wave energy technologies which, without exception, are large structures designed to sit on the ocean’s surface.
“The advantage that CETO’s got is that it’s fully submerged and if you’ve ever been
on a beach during a storm, or out there surfing, you’ll know that the best place to be when a wave comes through is under the water; you want to dive under the waves, so that’s where the lowest amount of energy is,” Mr Ottaviano says.
“So we have put the pumps on the sea floor in the low energy zone and our buoys sit up, still fully submerged, but closer to the surface in the high energy zone.”
In October, Carnegie Corporation announced the results of CETO’s latest in-sea trials at Fremantle, Western Australia, showing a near perfect correlation to the predicted computer-generated results.
Environmentalists have nevertheless voiced concerns about the units’ impact on marine life, although Carnegie is quick to point out the apparent acceptance of the local marine life of its new underwater neighbours.
“What we’re doing is obviously an environmentally related solution, if you like,” Mr Ottaviano says.
“But nothing is environmentally benign. What we’re doing is putting in a unit that sits on the sea floor. The way it’s moored to the sea floor is standard mooring technology – there’s nothing new about that; its clump weights or its screw moorings or suction anchors.
“But what we’ve found interestingly enough from all our trials, is that the units act like an artificial reef, because you’re providing a nucleation point for marine life, and the thing that we do attract ultimately to our site is fishermen, because they all find out that there’s fish there that weren’t there previously.”
Carnegie has another 12 to 18 months of testing and development work to complete before it will be ready to construct the company’s first commercial scale demonstration project. However, once the technology is proven, Michael Ottaviano believes CETO will have almost limitless potential.
“Well the CETO technology is infinitely scaleable,” says Mr Ottaviano. “It’s basically individual pumps, which would generate on their own around 100 to 200kw range. But you just simply put more pumps in the more that you need.”
“For the first commercial scale demonstration project which we’re actively seeking the first site for at the moment, we’re talking about an install capacity of 50MW for that and that’s roughly 2 hectares of sea floor space. So it’s about 2KW per meter square which is a pretty good energy intensity. That will also do 15 gigalitres per year of fresh water, as well.”
To put that in perspective; that site would create enough energy to supply around 40,000 households. But the billion dollar question – is this ingenious technology economically viable when pitted against traditional fossil fuel-generated electricity?
“When you look at where CETO is at the moment, it’s very early in its commercial roll out – in fact it’s only just about to begin its commercial roll out,” Mr Ottaviano says.
“Its costs currently are about the same cost of generation as wind power, so about the $80 per megawatt/hour. It’s already cost competitive from a desalination point of view, it’s around the $1.50-$2 per kilolitre, which is cost competitive.
“But these costs will come down rapidly over the coming years as we achieve scale and we go down the experience curve. So we will very soon, within a decade, be cost competitive with fossil fuels, plus have the benefits of zero emission technology,” he says.
“And I think that’s the point that’s missed in this debate currently, is that there’s a whole number of technologies that could potentially be developed and fill that demand and reduce our current reliance upon fossil fuels.”
However, Carnegie Corporation’s managing director Michael Ottaviano, is careful how he chooses his words when it comes to describing the seemingly straightforward innovation.
“I use the word elegant rather than simple because I insult all my engineers and scientists if I use the word simple!” he says.
“CETO is basically a pump that sits fully submerged underwater, anchored to the sea floor. So if you’re on the beach you don’t actually know it’s out there. And it converts the energy of the waves,” Mr Ottaviano says.
“Basically, the swell comes through and drives the buoy up and down in a pump. That pump sucks water in, pressurises it to very high pressure and then delivers that water ashore through a pipeline.
“And once you’re ashore, then you can then use that water to drive a turbine and create hydro electricity, or it comes in at the right pressure to create desalinated fresh water through standard reverse osmosis technology.”
CETO was first conceived in 1975, but it wasn’t until 2003 that the first prototype was created. Each unit is built from components with a known submarine life of over 30 years, and is designed to move in harmony with the sea, rather than attempting to resist its movement.
Mr Ottaviano believes the technology has a significant advantage to other wave energy technologies which, without exception, are large structures designed to sit on the ocean’s surface.
“The advantage that CETO’s got is that it’s fully submerged and if you’ve ever been
on a beach during a storm, or out there surfing, you’ll know that the best place to be when a wave comes through is under the water; you want to dive under the waves, so that’s where the lowest amount of energy is,” Mr Ottaviano says.
“So we have put the pumps on the sea floor in the low energy zone and our buoys sit up, still fully submerged, but closer to the surface in the high energy zone.”
In October, Carnegie Corporation announced the results of CETO’s latest in-sea trials at Fremantle, Western Australia, showing a near perfect correlation to the predicted computer-generated results.
Environmentalists have nevertheless voiced concerns about the units’ impact on marine life, although Carnegie is quick to point out the apparent acceptance of the local marine life of its new underwater neighbours.
“What we’re doing is obviously an environmentally related solution, if you like,” Mr Ottaviano says.
“But nothing is environmentally benign. What we’re doing is putting in a unit that sits on the sea floor. The way it’s moored to the sea floor is standard mooring technology – there’s nothing new about that; its clump weights or its screw moorings or suction anchors.
“But what we’ve found interestingly enough from all our trials, is that the units act like an artificial reef, because you’re providing a nucleation point for marine life, and the thing that we do attract ultimately to our site is fishermen, because they all find out that there’s fish there that weren’t there previously.”
Carnegie has another 12 to 18 months of testing and development work to complete before it will be ready to construct the company’s first commercial scale demonstration project. However, once the technology is proven, Michael Ottaviano believes CETO will have almost limitless potential.
“Well the CETO technology is infinitely scaleable,” says Mr Ottaviano. “It’s basically individual pumps, which would generate on their own around 100 to 200kw range. But you just simply put more pumps in the more that you need.”
“For the first commercial scale demonstration project which we’re actively seeking the first site for at the moment, we’re talking about an install capacity of 50MW for that and that’s roughly 2 hectares of sea floor space. So it’s about 2KW per meter square which is a pretty good energy intensity. That will also do 15 gigalitres per year of fresh water, as well.”
To put that in perspective; that site would create enough energy to supply around 40,000 households. But the billion dollar question – is this ingenious technology economically viable when pitted against traditional fossil fuel-generated electricity?
“When you look at where CETO is at the moment, it’s very early in its commercial roll out – in fact it’s only just about to begin its commercial roll out,” Mr Ottaviano says.
“Its costs currently are about the same cost of generation as wind power, so about the $80 per megawatt/hour. It’s already cost competitive from a desalination point of view, it’s around the $1.50-$2 per kilolitre, which is cost competitive.
“But these costs will come down rapidly over the coming years as we achieve scale and we go down the experience curve. So we will very soon, within a decade, be cost competitive with fossil fuels, plus have the benefits of zero emission technology,” he says.
“And I think that’s the point that’s missed in this debate currently, is that there’s a whole number of technologies that could potentially be developed and fill that demand and reduce our current reliance upon fossil fuels.”
